1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print system comprised of a plurality of personal computers and a printer connected to the computers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a network-accessible printer capable of connecting to a plurality of personal computers via a network has been put into practical use. In such a printer, print commands are often input to the printer from a plurality of personal computers substantially at the same time. At this time, however, various kinds of recording paper sheets may be used for print with respect to users of the personal computers. For example, a dedicated recording paper sheet optimized for the printer is required to obtain the best image quality for a user, while a reverse face of recording paper sheets on which some unnecessary data is printed suffices to check a draft of a manuscript for another user. When the print commands are input from a plurality of users requiring different types of recording paper sheets almost simultaneously, irrespective of the type of recording paper sheets loaded on a paper feed tray, print is performed in the order of input of the print commands. In this case, print may not be done on desired recording paper sheet. Thus, since the user needs to confirm whether the other person intends to the printer or not when inputting the print command, the printer is not easy to use. Furthermore, when each personal computer connected to the printer via network is located at a position distant from the printer, the above-mentioned confirmation of intention is virtually impossible.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-268848 discloses a system for managing network for preventing data mismatching from occurring simultaneous access in a printer. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications No. 2003-216374 and 2000-153655 disclose a network system that locks the operation of a certain interface to protect intelligent setting items by causing a certain file to exist.